The Welfare State Reader has established itself as a vital source of outstanding original research since its original appearance in 2000. In the third edition, Pierson, Castles and Naumann have comprehensively overhauled the content, bringing it wholly up to date with contemporary discussions about this most crucial area of social and political life.

The book includes seventeen new selections, all reflecting the latest thinking and research in welfare state studies. These readings are organized around contemporary debates, such as the current trajectories of, constraints on and challenges to contemporary welfare regimes, as well as evolving ideas and emergent forms that constitute the future of welfare. In particular, new readings focus on issues such as ageing populations and low fertility, climate change and global financial uncertainty, and nascent 'politics of happiness'. As in previous editions, the volume begins with a collection of readings that provide a grounding in core approaches to welfare, and each section is set in context by a new editorial introduction.

As well as bringing together classic debates, The Welfare State Reader represents an invaluable guide to what is happening at the cutting edge of welfare research, giving the reader an unrivalled overview of debates surrounding the welfare state.

Christopher Pierson is professor of politics at the University of Nottingham, UK, and lead editor of the British Journal of Politics and International Relations. He is author of Beyond the Welfare State? 3rd edition (Polity, 2006).

Francis G. Castles is professor emeritus of social and public policy at the University of Edinburgh, UK.

Ingela K. Naumann is lecturer in social policy at the University of Edinburgh, UK.

Editors’ Introduction to the Third Edition

PART I - APPROACHES TO WELFARE
The First Welfare State? Thomas Paine
Section 1: ‘Classical’
The Welfare State in Historical Perspective, Asa Briggs
Citizenship and Social Class, T.H. Marshall
Universalism versus Selection, Richard Titmuss
Section 2: Perspectives on the Left
What is Social Justice? Commission on Social Justice
Some Contradictions of the Modern Welfare State, Claus Offe
Section 3: Responses from the Right
The Meaning of the Welfare State, Friedrich Hayek
The Two Wars against Poverty, Charles Murray
The New Politics of the New Poverty, Lawrence M. Mead
Section 4: Feminism
The Patriarchal Welfare State, Carole Pateman
The Welfare State and Women Power, Helga Maria Hernes

PART II - WELFARE REGIMES UNDER THREAT
Section 1: Trajectories
Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, Gøsta Esping-Andersen
Religion and the Western Welfare State, Philip Manow and Kees van Kersbergen
The New Politics of the Welfare State, Paul Pierson
Section 2: Constraints
Globalization, the Welfare State and Inequality, Duane Swank
The Europeanization of Social Protection: Domestic Impacts and National Responses, Jon Kvist and Juho Saari
Explaining Convergence of OECD Welfare States: a Conditional Approach, Carina Schmitt and Peter Starke
Breaking with the Past? Why the Global Financial Crisis led to Austerity Policies but not to Modernization of the Welfare State, Klaus Armingeon
Section 3: Challenges
Ageing and the Welfare State: Securing Sustainability, Volker Meier and Martin Werding
Very Low Fertility: Consequences, Causes and Policy Approaches, Peter McDonald
Migration, Minorities and Welfare States, Carl-Ulrik Schierup and Stephen Castles
The Politics of the New Social Policies: Providing Coverage against New Social Risks in Mature Welfare States, Giuliano Bonoli

PART III - EMERGING IDEAS, EMERGENT FORMS
Section 1: Emerging Ideas
The Big Society: A New Policy Environment for the Third Sector? Peter Alcock
Diffusing Ideas for After Neoliberalism: The Social Investment Perspective in Europe and Latin America, Jane Jenson
The Governance of Economic Uncertainty: Beyond the ‘New Social Risk’ Analysis, Colin Crouch and Maarten Keune
How Climate Change will Shape the Social Policy Framework, Zahir Sadeque
Basic Income and the Two Dilemmas of the Welfare, State Phillippe van Parijs
Section 2: Emergent Forms
What Adult Worker Model? A Critical Look at Recent Social Policy Reform in Europe from a Gender and Family Perspective, Mary Daly
Beyond Modernization? Social Care and the Transformation of Welfare Governance, Janet Newman, Caroline Glendinning and Michael Hughes
Assessing the Welfare State: The Politics of Happiness, Alexander Pacek and Benjamin Radcliff
Europe’s Post-Democratic Era, Jürgen Habermas